Tag: software

The Behavio team is very happy to announce a major version update to Funf, our open-source mobile sensing framework, accompanied by respective updates to Funf’s two user-facing components (Funf Journal and Funf In A Box). In the time since our last major version update (Funf 0.3) last year, we’ve had a chance to see how […] more »

Three weeks ago, FrontlineSMS launched its first new full release in more than a year. Now, we’re releasing Version 2.0.2, which includes useful bug fixes and small tweaks to the functionality that make it even easier to use. You can expect regular releases from us from now on, with new features coming out every couple […] more »

Let’s face it: The great promise of citizen media has not really been fulfilled. News organizations have struggled to find ways to supplement their coverage of news events with contributions from citizens — and finding citizen media related to a news event is currently difficult at best. Keyword searches and hashtags provide partial solutions, but […] more »

Hey friends! We’ve got two extremely exciting announcements for you. Our first focus community, serving Denton, Texas, has launched. And we’re making the first major release of the new LocalWiki software today! The LocalWiki project is an ambitious effort to create community-owned, living information repositories that will provide much-needed context behind the people, places, and […] more »

In Uganda, where many lack access to the Internet, people can engage with local radio stations to make informed choices and hold their leaders accountable. Using SMS and a new tool, TRAC FM, listeners can respond to poll questions such as: What service delivery should be a priority: health care, education, security, sanitation or transport? […] more »

Hey friends! It’s time for another LocalWiki update! What’s happened since our last update? Erg, a lot! Pilots The LocalWiki project is an ambitious effort to create community-owned, living information repositories that will provide much-needed context behind the people, places, and events that shape our communities. We’ve selected our very first few pilot communities. Folks […] more »

Going over my notes from the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, the panel that was definitely the most valuable to my work on the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership was Hacking the News: Applying Computer Science to Journalism. What we’re doing The Knight-Mozilla Partnership will be embedding 15 techie fellows within news organizations for a year […] more »

Today, the New York Times is hosting TimesOPEN, their first developer conference. We’re now listening to tech book publisher Tim O’Reilly, but just a few minutes ago Janet Robinson, President and CEO of the New York Times Company, concluded her remarks. As a nonjournalist, I never developed the skill to take shorthand, but I did […] more »

After a series of false starts on an energy consumption game we decided to skip ahead to a timely game of balancing the budget . The game is actually a reprise of a popular budget balancing game we created in 2003 — we’re regularly asked for the source code for that game, and while we […] more »

In my experience in media companies and academia, developing or implementing new software is almost always a painful process. The people who are going to use the software can’t communicate what they want, and the developers don’t understand the end users’ needs. The developers think the end users have unreasonable expectations, while the end users […] more »